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Dark matter from a flat rotation curve
A spiral galaxy has a flat rotation curve with km/s out to kpc. (a) Find the enclosed mass. (b) The luminous mass is . What mass-to-light discrepancy does this imply, and what does it tell you about the density profile of the missing matter?
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Reading resources
Material that covers the physics behind this problem.
- An Introduction to Modern AstrophysicsCarroll & Ostlie
The standard reference for olympiad-level astrophysics. Chapters 1-3 cover the celestial sphere, orbits and the magnitude system.
Textbook - Ohio State Astronomy Lecture NotesOhio State University
Clear university-level notes on stars, galaxies and cosmology with derivations you can follow line by line.
Lecture notes - Crash Course AstronomyPhil Plait
46 short episodes. Useful for building intuition quickly before diving into the maths.
Video